THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MATTER: ADULT EDUCATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Education is vital for all. It is a systematic exposition of the mind to information as the brain continues to develop better responses to stimuli. This reason is why it is crucial to begin educating children right from their infant ages. It is not to say that an adult mind hitherto deprived of education cannot learn. It can, but it will take more significant effort, skill, patience, and time. For one, our human brain has adapted to expect a certain level of intelligence from other humans based on their age and experience. For most uneducated adults, the teachers would have to be trained not to have this basal expectation. These and many more are the challenges that face adult education, where it concerns the teacher.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has a history entrenched in brutal slavery, civil war, and political instability up till the present. With constant states of unrest and prolonged outbreaks of diseases, a large population of the present adult missed out on education while growing up. It has been said that more than half the adult women population in the Democratic Republic of Congo cannot read and write. This situation has been seen as an opportunity to extort these innocent and naïve populations of non-literate citizens.

Desanges Kabuya Ndanzi is a thirty-five old participant of the Adult Education Program backed by the World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In the program, adults are being taught the skills they missed out on for not attending school. Speaking of the advantages that the program has added to her, Kabuya said that she only became aware of how less she has been getting paid in contrast to the amount stated in the contract for her cleaning job. According to her, she was supposed to be paid US$50 in accordance with the contract agreement. However, she has been getting paid US$25. This development was unknown to her until she participated in the program, where she learnt to read and write.

Kabuya is a paradigm of many more with similar fate interspersed among the Democratic Republic of Congo cities and towns. Kabuya does the cleaning job to supplement her meagre income as a subsistence farmer. She is a single mother of six children. It is quite sad that despite these struggles and her limited opportunities, she gets exploited while trying to make ends meet for herself and her children. What is sadder is the fact that there are many more like Kabuya all over the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

There are many more women and men being denied their hard-earned income and other rights simply because of their lack of reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. Thanks to the Adult Education Program, Kabuya and the other attendees of the program can attend to right these wrongs by learning the necessary arithmetic skills and the literary skills of reading and writing. For Kabuya and the other, life is a bit easier, and hope is finally coming from the horizon. But who will help the plight of the more men and women in similar situations that are not yet admitted into these programs or similar programs or are not even aware of such programs?

The Democratic Republic of Congo is a large, highly populated country. The Adult Education Program is currently based in Bweremana, North Kivu. For the literacy goal of this program to be achieved and saturated all over the Democratic Republic of Congo, similar such programs have to develop in other parts of the country. These programs would help reach more adults and ensure that they have the basic skills to work and afford basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing. The United Nations has taken a giant step in starting the fire of adult education in DRC. It becomes the collective effort of other NGOs to move this cause forward.

Education is an integral part of the philanthropic activities of ASBL LEF. We are concerned about the education of people, donors, and care receivers. For the donor, we are concerned about educating them on the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We want them to see the reasons why their donations are integral to the survival of the millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are constantly crying out for help from the rest of the world. This is why we have designed contents and programs that expose our donors and readers to the conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For the care receivers, who are majorly Congolese living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, ASBL LEF would develop similar adult education programs to help reach a wider range of non-literate adults. In line with the objectives of the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, these programs would help us in the fight against poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Poverty is deeper when people are being exploited for their basic right to resources and income. While we make an effort to dissuade advantaged people from exploiting the disadvantaged people, we must understand that corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo stems from a consistent communication of corruptive values over the years. It will take years of consistent communication of constructive values to undo its effects and consequences.

In the meantime, however, a more realistic solution is to empower the oppressed and equip them with the necessary skills and information they need to understand and defend their rights. Ensuring the literacy of most adults would be a giant step in achieving this objective. This is why ASBL LEF has decided to channel the funds realized from our various fundraising activities to back NGOs in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create and run similar adult programs all over the country. As part of our activities to realize the needed funds from donations, ASBL LEF would periodically host fundraising events in Luxembourg for the people and government of Luxembourg to donate for the survival of our brother and sisters in DRC. Our fundraising events are individual-centered, as we have developed programs across the fields of entertainment, sports, and the arts to cater to everyone’s diverse interests.

Join us, then, as we champion the fight for survival in the Democratic Republic of Congo by providing the people with the little things that matter. For us, an educated adult is a tool for poverty alleviation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Become a donor today and join our fight in making the world a better place. You can also purchase products from our shop (backlink to shop) as the profit realized from these sales also go to funding our various humanitarian and philanthropic projects.